Demonstration of an infrared microcamera inspired by Xenos peckii vision

Guillaume Druart (1) , Nicolas Guérineau (1) , Riad Haïdar (1) , Sophie Thetas (1) , Jean Albert Taboury (2) , Sylvain Rommeluère (1) , Jérôme Primot (1) , Manuel Fendler (3)

1 ONERA - The French Aerospace Lab [Châtillon]
2 Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique / Scop
3 CEA-LETI - Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives - Laboratoire d'Electronique et de Technologie de l'Information

We present an original and compact optical system inspired by the unusual eyes of a Strepsipteran insect called Xenos peckii. It is designed for a field of view of 30° and is composed of multiple telescopes. An array of prisms of various angles is placed in front of these telescopes in order to set a different field of view for each channel. This type of camera operates in the [ 3−5 μm] spectral bandwidth and is entirely integrated in a Dewar in order to maximize its compactness. Experimental images are presented to validate this design.

Keywords: Imaging systems; Image quality assessment; Infrared imaging; Multiple imaging; Image reconstruction techniques; Micro-optical devices

Domains: Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Optics [physics.optics]

Guillaume Druart, Nicolas Guérineau, Riad Haïdar, Sophie Thetas, Jean Albert Taboury, et al.. Demonstration of an infrared microcamera inspired by Xenos peckii vision. Applied optics, 2009, 48 (18), pp.3368--3374. ⟨10.1364/AO.48.003368⟩. ⟨hal-00569989⟩